Amarula announces second stage of campaign

Distell brand Amarula has launched the second stage of its Name Them, Save Them program, with 400,000 individualised bottles featuring a named elephant from the earlier part of the campaign.

“Name Them, Save Them” got its start last October when Amarula launched Phase One, an on-line effort that allowed an international audience to visit a digital African savannah where they could design and name a virtual African elephant. Participants could then share their named elephant with friends and fellow conservationists as a means of raising awareness to the plight of these intelligent and magnificent animals. To date, over 500,000 elephant-lovers from around the world have visited Amarula’s digital African savannah – a number greater than the actual population of African elephants currently living in the wild.

At IAADFS in Orlando this year, Amarula will roll-out the next phase of Name Them, Save Them. In Phase Two, the digitalised pachyderms created by the cream liqueur’s online audience are brought to life by putting a named elephant and information regarding the animal on the labels of 400,000 individualised Amarula bottles - one bottle for each of the earth’s remaining African elephants. Amarula will be showcasing a number of these one-of-a-kind bottles at IAADFS before they are distributed to Amarula markets around the world.

Commenting on the Name Them, Save Them conservation effort, Dino D’Araujo, Amarula global general manager, says: “The future of the African elephant is at a tipping point. Collected data shows that each day – not each month or even each week – each day around 96 African elephants are killed by poachers for their ivory. The species simply cannot sustain a slaughter on that scale and survive."

The latest wildlife census information puts the number of African elephants living in the wild at around 400,000, a staggering decline from just a decade ago.

Amarula intends to maintain the digital African savannah and its visuals into the foreseeable future. Amarula will donate $1.00 (USD) to elephant conservation efforts for every digital elephant created on the site.

D’Araujo noted that the African elephant has been the symbol for Amarula Cream Liqueur since its inception and the animal’s current plight demanded a greater conservation effort by the brand to try to save it. He says: “We have always had a special bond with these magnificent creatures as the marula tree and its fruit contribute enormously to the well-being of the elephant and the very existence of Amarula. We had to come up with something that would personalise the plight of the African elephant in a way that would resonate with the international community and rally it to the cause. We think Name Them, Save Them is the perfect vehicle for this outreach.”

The Amarula bottles carrying the name and information on the digitalised elephants will be available beginning in late-spring and early-summer, 2017 in GTR as well as South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Canada, the UK and US.